


Smoke and Mirrors

by sparrow2000



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 12:37:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2068500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrow2000/pseuds/sparrow2000
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Giles, not Willow, is on Xander-sitting duty during Season 1 episode The Pack</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smoke and Mirrors

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 2014 summer_of_giles  
> Characters: Giles, Xander  
> Rating: PG overall  
> Genre: Gen  
> Warnings: nothing to frighten the horses  
> Disclaimer: Joss and Mutant Enemy et al own everything. I own nothing  
> Beta extraordinaire as always: thismaz  
> Comments are cuddled and called George

**Smoke and Mirrors**

There was a time when Giles had dreamed of being a pilot or an acrobat, a grocer or a clown. Of doing the kind of job that other people did. People who didn’t know about the dark; who played dress up with their kids at Halloween and welcomed strangers in without a moments doubt. Ordinary things. Simple things. Things that made them real.

He wasn’t real. Not now. Perhaps not even then? He was a figment of his own imagination, created by a thousand years of heritage and belief. One day he was sure that he would look in the mirror and no one would look back and wouldn’t that be ironic. What was he now but a different type of vampire, nursing on the fate of a choiceless girl to ensure his own existence? He was Chosen too and he struggled to remember a different Rupert Giles.

But now, in the library, in the centre of his adult domain, he watched another boy through the wire of the book cage and his breath caught halfway between recognition and regret. The boy paced from side to side, cornered predator looking for a weakness - hips loose, jeans tight, shoulders back and eyes sharp, every moment liquid and intense. He knew this boy. He had been this boy.

As he watched, something ancient and arcane uncurled in his belly and roared through his blood, like drums beating in the darkness. Closing his eyes, he conjured up an image of flared blue jeans, tight black tee shirt and battered leather jacket. Cigarette between the finger and thumb of his left hand, right hip cocked against the bar, looking for action and the chance to make a move. He remembered the joy in the wanting and taking and having. The feeling of power with no responsibility and the freedom of endless possibility.

He knew he ought to laugh at his younger self. But he realised that boy too was a creation, a not so gentle rebellion against his calling and the ghosts of Watchers past. It hadn’t lasted. He’d never really stood a chance. He’d seized his day and it had burned brightly for a swift, sweet moment, like a summer sun, until the ecstasy of Ethan and Eyghon had turned a roaring flame into winter embers and the taste of ashes on his tongue. Then he had crawled back, shoulders bowed under the roar of disapproval, until he’d been swept up on a tide of convention and completely submerged.

And now there was this boy, pressed full length against the cage door, watching, waiting for his moment and memory turned to regret, turned to pity. This boy had always been the good boy, the comforter - the joker, the fetch and carrier, feeling the weight of expectation and the tyranny of doubt. Throwing himself against the dangers that danced in the shadows, with nothing to protect him but his heart and his loyalty and a stupid joke to mask his fear. But right now, right here, with power thrumming through his veins, voices whispering in his head, stretching inside him, moulding, enticing and beguiling, doubts disappeared like second-hand smoke.

Giles pitied this boy. Pitied a childhood lived in a place that could offer the illusion of power, of certainty and freedom. Pitied the need to tear it down, to bury it, before the power became all consuming. Pitied the inevitable loss of certainty and the corrosion of mistrust.

Groping behind an old encyclopedia on a back shelf he pulled out the guilty pleasure that would make the children frown. He tapped the tobacco onto the paper and rolled, muscle memory making fingers fluid. The stopper came out of the bottle of malt in one easy motion and amber liquid was poured into crystal and cradled in ink stained hands.

Then he watched this boy, pace and whisper and giggle and plot, oozing with confidence and guile. He took a long pull on his cigarette, exhaled and dropped his glasses on the table at his side. And he mourned for the boy he had once been, and raised a glass to the lost possibility of a man whose spark had been smothered before he’d really had the chance to live and breathe.


End file.
